Universities bet £5m on solving digital copyright problems

EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT the University of Glasgow has inaugurated a centre where scholars will meet and bash out how to deal with the issues of copyright in these digital times.

The centre is called the Centre for Creativity, Regulation, Enterprise and Technology, or CREATe when you add, as they have, a lowercase 'e' to the acronym.

Seven expert establishments will form CREATe's braintrust, and a £5m set up cost and beard stroking budget comes from UK research councils. The University of Glasgow will kick in an extra £1.7m during the four year funded period.

According to the university, "40 CREATe projects focused on the intersections between culture, the economy and technology will offer policymakers invaluable analyses for developing new regulatory frameworks," is the plan. It adds, "The research will also play into debate about the growth of new and emerging services."

The CREATe director, professor Martin Kretschmer said by way of introduction, "The vast expansion of access to digital technology in recent years has created tremendous opportunities for the UK creative sector, which generates around £60bn each year, or 6 [percent] of the UK economy. As the sector increasingly moves towards digital content, copyright issues are becoming more important than ever.

"Studies have shown that between 60% and 70% of young people illegally download music, movies or TV shows, but often those who download most are also the best customers. Producers are being forced to rethink their ways of doing business."

As well as the University of Glasgow, the universities of Edinburgh, Strathclyde, St Andrews, Nottingham, East Anglia and London Goldsmiths are all involved.

CREATe has the backing of Nesta, the Intellectual Property Office and the Technology Strategy Board, the latter of which is an academic consortium with links to 80 creative industry partners. µ